Different modules for charging a battery and for protecting of the battery during the charging are available.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,143,860 B2 describes a battery controller for use in a portable device. The battery controller has a battery management system, which has cell-balancing field effect transistors that are coupled to a data bus. The management system is provided in a single chip device to reduce cost.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2012/0170157 A1 describes a battery management and protection system for, as an example, a lithium-ion battery of a portable device. The battery management and protection system has a controller. During a start-up of the battery management and protection system, the controller is adapted to load safety values or load calibration parameters automatically from a non-volatile memory to registers. The system acts to improve reliability of battery management by use of adaptive control methods.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,701,068 describes a battery management system for management and control of a plurality of rechargeable batteries, which are connected in series. The battery management system includes a programmed central processing unit that communicates with a plurality of battery modules and a bulk charger.
Each of the battery modules includes a rechargeable battery, a sensor node, and a direct current charger. The sensor node comprises a plurality of battery sensors, and a microcontroller that processes signals generated by the battery sensors.
During a charging cycle, the bulk charger provides a variable bulk charging current to the rechargeable batteries. Each of the rechargeable batteries receives a charging current from individual direct current charger, which is positioned at the respective rechargeable battery.
The voltage and temperature of the rechargeable batteries are also monitored by the programmed central processing unit by means of the sensor nodes. The bulk charging current is reduced to one-half when any battery voltage reaches a predetermined clamping voltage. Once the bulk charging current is reduced to approximately 1 to 2 percent of the 3-hour discharge capacity for the rechargeable batteries, the bulk charger is turned off and the direct current chargers have finished each battery charge independently.